Russian police raid activist leaders' homes

Protest organisers asked to appear in court on Tuesday, when they had planned to attend mass opposition rally in Moscow.

Critics say Putin has moved to tighten restrictions on freedom of expression since his re-election [Reuters]

Russian police have raided the homes of prominent critics of President Vladimir Putin on the eve of an opposition rally expected to draw tens of thousands of people.

Monday's early morning raids, carried out by police armed with assault rifles, appeared to signal a shift in tone in dealing with protests as Putin starts his new six-year term.

Putin signed a law on Friday that increased fines for violations of public order at street demonstrations, ignoring warnings from his human rights council that it was unconstitutional. Putin's opponents said the law was an attempt to silence dissent.

The new law increases fines for protests to as much as 300,000 roubles ($9,200) for participants and one million roubles ($30,600) for organisers - almost equivalent to Russia's average annual salary.

Officers beat down the doors of Alexei Navalny, the increasingly popular anti-corruption blogger, as well as Ksenya Sobchak, a media celebrity and more recent Putin critic.

Others on list

Others on the list included Sergei Udaltsov, an outspoken ultra-leftist who stages periodic hunger strikes to protest his repeated arrests, and the more moderate democracy campaigner Ilya Yashin.

Boris Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister, was also targeted, activists said.

Commenting on the raids, Alexander Nekrassov, a former Kremlin adviser, said he found the whole situation "bizarre".

"All these people whose houses have been searched have been given such publicity on the eve of another important march," he told Al Jazeera.

"So I would say that the security forces, the police, are doing a disfavour to Putin - and Russia generally."

Nekrassov said he did not believe that Putin himself had ordered the raids, but that someone had given the president "the wrong advice".

The protest leaders' representatives said the raids were unexpected and similar to those conducted in far more serious cases involving grave crimes.

Navalny's attorney, Olga Mikhailova, told Moscow Echo radio that "around 15 policemen burst" into his Moscow apartment on Monday morning and presented him with a search warrant.

"Initially, they tried to break down the door," she said.

'Mass disturbances'

Russia's powerful Investigative Committee said 10 raids were being conducted as part of a probe over a May 6 demonstration, on the eve of Putin's inauguration, "that ended in mass disturbances".

"There's a search going on at my home," Navalny wrote on Twitter.

"They practically cut out the door," wrote Navalny, who later tweeted that police had confiscated the electronics in his home "including discs with the children's photos".

Other members of the opposition said the raids were a sign that Putin had given up on democracy.

"Putin has stopped even imitating democracy," Sergei Mitrokhin, a liberal opposition leader, said on Ekho Moskvy.

Dozens expressed anger over the move on the internet, which the opposition has used to organise the mass protests that have threatened Putin's authority, bypassing a compliant television media that is under tight state control.

Messages exchanged

"Vova is crazy," one Twitter user wrote, referring to Putin by using the common nickname for Vladimir, and others exchanged messages under the tag that translates as ' hello1937' - a reference to the deadliest year of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin's repression.

City authorities have authorised up to 50,000 people to take part in a demonstration and subsequent rally on Tuesday at the site of a December protest against that month's fraud-tainted parliamentary polls.

"They are trying to disrupt the 'March of Millions' and make sure fewer people come," human rights campaign Lev Ponomaryov told Interfax.

Putin won a six-year presidential term in March despite a wave of protests which drew tens of thousands of people to the streets, particularly middle-class city dwellers.

Opposition activists vowed to press ahead with plans for the protest. "These madly repressive measures are meant to frighten people," activist Sergei Davidis said on Ekho Moskvy, adding that the protest would go ahead as planned.